Try the Devils
by Jackilyn Hughes
Summary: Heaven Falls and Hell triumphs, but is it really as bad as it seems? Decidedly not. Aziraphale gives Gabriel some coping advice.


Aziraphale sat lounging rather comfortably on a vaguely chair-shaped reddish brown rock (1) as Crowley pouted at the foot end of it, the unnatural flames of Hell licking around his form. He was drinking something deep red, extremely hot and spicy, and highly alcoholic and his mouth twisted strangely up to one side. (3)

Adam was pacing back and forth in front of his own given-up vaguely chair-shaped rock, trying desperately to think of a way to reverse it all and get back his precious Tadfield while his friends and a few curious used-to-be-Humans watched him.

The rest of the Demons were drinking and laughing at the used-to-be-Angels, whose wings had already burned away and who were sweating and clenching their jaws against screams of pain at the Hellfire eating away at their used-to-be-Holy bodies.

The used-to-be-Angel who sat closest to Aziraphale was Gabriel, and next to him Michael (4). The two former Archangels were sweating and occasionally panting, though they both refused to make any other sound of discomfort. Gabriel looked to Aziraphale with something akin to desperation in his eyes. Aziraphale met his gaze in perfect comfort, lounging away on Crowley's vaguely chair-shaped rock and nursing his Hell-drink.

"How can you stand it, Aziraphale?" Gabriel implored. "How can you appear so perfectly at ease?" Aziraphale really tried to stop the grin that dominated his face then (5), but he failed and aimed to cover it with the reddish-brown vaguely goblet-shaped rock that held his drink.

"It's really not so bad." He tried to sound sympathetic. Then shrugged nonchalantly. "You get used to it, I suppose." (6) Gabriel looked like he would like to die, which, Aziraphale thought rather smugly, was unfortunate, as he was incapable of doing so at the present time.

A little Imp came bouncing toward them (7), carrying what appeared to be a fluffy red cake on a golden platter that reflected the Hellfire in quite the torturous way. At the sight of the cake-bearing Imp, Crowley's expression transformed quickly from pout to evil-grin, and he rose to his feet. Aziraphale set down his drink and leaned forward as well.

The Imp cheerfully passed around a bit of cake to everyone who'd accept some from it. (8) Crowley and Aziraphale eagerly took the pieces offered them, and Crowley nearly swallowed his whole.

As Aziraphale ate his slice of cake slowly and reverently, abandoning his drink for the time being, Gabriel posed another question.

"Aziraphale, what is that?" (9)

"It's Devil's Food Cake," Aziraphale answered cheerfully, looking up from the cake in his hand to look at Gabriel while he spoke. "Would you like to try some? It's very good." Gabriel now looked like he wanted to vomit, but he took a bit of the Devil's Food Cake anyway and tasted it.

Gabriel's eyes widened in surprise at the cake's deliciousness, reluctantly telling Aziraphale it was the best cake he'd ever had in his existence and asking for more. Aziraphale handed over his plate with a wicked grin.

"If you think that's good," he told Gabriel in a conspiratorial stage-whisper. "You should try the actual Devils." He winked, and leaned back languorously – and somewhat invitingly, everyone couldn't help but notice – in his vaguely chair-shaped rock. Gabriel gaped at the other Angel as he allowed Crowley to crawl on top of him and steal the last bit of remaining Devil's Food Cake right out of his mouth.

Gabriel flinched and bit the inside of his cheek as a particularly hungry bit of Hellfire bit him sharply on the elbow. Glancing first at Michael to make sure the former Protector was glaring elsewhere; Gabriel began to search out a suitable Devil. He figured he might need some distraction…

+

(1) If you weren't originally a Demon, you could only have a vaguely chair-shaped rock if an original Demon gave up his or her seat for you. Crowley, obviously, gave up his for Aziraphale to sit on, and Adam had given up his (2) so that Pepper, Brian, and Wensleydale could all squeeze onto it, avoiding the Hellfire.

(2) Adam, for some reason, still counted as an original Demon. Perhaps his father was trying to earn his son's loyalty by giving him a vaguely chair-shaped rock. We may never know.

(3) To his credit, Aziraphale did try not to smirk at his fellow used-to-be-Angels; it just didn't work very well. But, hey, at least he managed to hold in that "I told you so" that was just itching to be rubbed in their faces.

(4) Who glared at everyone, even his fellow used-to-be-Angels. The look promised that he would be fighting Lucifer one day soon, defeating him and earning his place back in Heaven. It also challenged them all to tell him he was wrong, and no one dared, even though he most definitely was. Heaven (and God, both) was no longer in existence.

(5) He's gotten much better at lying now, can you tell?

(6) The fact that Aziraphale had been in Hell for an even shorter time than Gabriel went uncommented upon. This is good, because Aziraphale is not that good at lying, and would eventually have let slip that he'd been there before, with Crowley, for… a visit where they couldn't be caught by Heaven's watchdogs.

(7) It looked rather like a mixture of an overly-hyper young child and an overly-hyper young yip-dog dressed in fuzzy red footie pajamas. No one could really tell if it was male or female, and everyone wondered if it perhaps was neither. Or both.

(8) It seemed very excited about it all, and most of the onlookers figured it'd never had a job in Hell before and had just sat around being sort of cutely annoying all the time.

(9) He'd been planning to say, "Aziraphale, what in God's name is that?" but as God no longer existed, there wasn't any name belonging to Him, so it would've made his question seem dumb.


End file.
